Gauntlet

Gauntlet was released in 1985 by Atari Games for arcades. It was one of the first hack-and-slash dungeon-crawler games constructed. The game emphasized multiplayer involvement, and up to four could play at any given time. In addition to the plethora of items and monsters, there was an announcer, akin to Dungeons & Dragons' Dungeon Master, who would comment on the current situation, pickups, and the like. Gauntlet II came out a year later and was a vast improvement over the original.

Contents

Story

The original Gauntlet lacked a cohesive story. The player chose a character to represent themselves, then attempted to survive as long as possible.

Gameplay

Players must navigate a labyrinth from a top-down, 3rd person view while their character's health slowly dwindled away. The goal is to find the exit for each room, and to survive for as long possible while doing so. Item collection is a must, both for survival and scoring. The game only had a joystick and two buttons, "Fire" and "Magic". Accessing Treasure Rooms gave a chance for a bonus and collecting extra power potions.

Characters

Items

Weapons

Consumables

Enemies

Starting the trend for future installments, monsters come in three levels of strength and are spawned by monster Generators. Destroying these generators is a primary goal of the game, and essential for stopping the flood of monsters.